Round Anvil Rock A Romance

XXIII

LOVE CLAIMS HIS OWN

The tears had been heavy on Ruth's dark lash­es when she had fall­en asleep, but she awoke with a smile, ra­di­ant and ex­pec­tant. She could not re­mem­ber at first what made her so hap­py, and a pang touched her heart at the sud­den rec­ol­lec­tion of the night's sad­ness. And then sud­den­ly she be­gan to glow again at the thought of her lover's com­ing. The week of his ex­ile was end­ed on that day, and he would come. She knew just how he would look when he came with his head held high, and his clear eyes, so kind, and yet so fear­less, look­ing straight in ev­ery face. She could tell the very mo­ment when he would come, for she had the hap­pi­ness--which ev­ery wom­an prizes and few ev­er know--of lov­ing a man who kept his word in the let­ter as well as the spir­it. If men could but know the dif­fer­ence there is to a wom­an! But they hard­ly ev­er do know, be­cause this is a lit­tle thing, and they can nev­er un­der­stand that it is the lit­tle things and not the large ones that make the hap­pi­ness or the wretched­ness of most wom­en.

She ex­ult­ed in the thought that he would come at the very in­stant he had named, no soon­er and no lat­er, and this would be pre­cise­ly at four o'clock. She looked round with a smile, try­ing to tell by the mark on the win­dow-​sill what the time was then. But the day was gloomy, and there was no sun­light to mark the hour. Soli­tary snowflakes were drift­ing ir­res­olute­ly across the win­dow, as if un­cer­tain whether to go on earth­ward or re­turn whence they came. The birds sat on the bare branch­es near the win­dow wait­ing for their break­fast in ruf­fled im­pa­tience, the blue jay hav­ing done his best to call her to the win­dow ear­li­er. And he said so, in his own way, as she scat­tered the crumbs with a cheery good morn­ing.

When she went down to break­fast, the fam­ily re­ceived her much as the birds had done. Her com­ing cheered them al­so, as if a sun­beam had en­tered the dark room. Miss Pene­lope left off what she was say­ing about the calami­ties that must be ex­pect­ed in con­se­quence of the comet's tail com­ing loose from its head. The wid­ow Broad­nax re­laxed her watch for a mo­ment, as the fair young fig­ure came to­ward the hearth and stood by her chair, rest­ing a hand on her shoul­der. The judge bright­ened, with­out know­ing what it was that sud­den­ly heart­ened him, and David came out of his cor­ner un­der the stairs, as he nev­er did, un­less she was in the room. On­ly William held aloof af­ter a for­mal bow. At the sight of her, smil­ing and ra­di­ant, the sullen anger with­in him glowed like a cov­ered fire un­der a sud­den breeze. She had not been pun­ished enough; her face was far too bright, her man­ner far too frank. When she ap­proached him and tried to speak to him in a tone that no one else could hear, he arose, and mur­mur­ing a stiff apol­ogy moved away, just as he had done ev­ery time she had made the at­tempt. She flushed and lift­ed her head, for there was no lack of pride or spir­it in her soft­ness. Yet by and by she could not help look­ing at him across the ta­ble with an­oth­er soft ap­peal in her sweet eyes which plead dumb­ly for old times' sake. And af­ter break­fast was over she tried again, know­ing that this would be the last op­por­tu­ni­ty, and yearn­ing with all her lov­ing heart to win back some of the old friend­li­ness that she still prized as a pre­cious thing, which she could not give up for a mere touch of pride. Such soft per­sis­tence is even hard­er to evade than to re­sist, and she fol­lowed William to the door as he was go­ing away lat­er in the day, and was brave­ly gath­er­ing courage while he looked at her in im­pla­ca­ble cold­ness.

He was not soft­ened by the fact that his hopes were high that morn­ing over what ap­peared to be the cer­tain­ty of his re­ceiv­ing the ap­point­ment. There was, he thought, not the slight­est doubt if he could man­age to se­cure the in­flu­ence of one or two oth­er lead­ing cit­izens. As it was, there seemed to be lit­tle dan­ger of fail­ure, and when he now saw Philip Al­ston com­ing, he paused and wait­ed for him to come up, so that he might tell him what he had been do­ing. He did not know that he was mere­ly telling Philip Al­ston how his own or­ders had been car­ried out, and there was noth­ing in that gen­tle­man's man­ner to re­mind him.

William Press­ley, ac­cord­ing­ly, went on talk­ing with the mod­est con­scious­ness of hav­ing done all that was pos­si­ble for any man to do, and he said, as they were en­ter­ing the great room, that he con­sid­ered his suc­cess a mere ques­tion of time.

“A mere ques­tion of time, and a very short time, too,” re­peat­ed Philip Al­ston, hearti­ly. “I con­grat­ulate you. I am proud of you. We are all proud of him--hey, judge?”

“I hope he knows what he is try­ing to un­der­take,” the judge said abrupt­ly, turn­ing a glum look on his nephew. “I trust, William, that you are re­al­iz­ing the re­spon­si­bil­ity of this of­fice. Most men would hes­itate to as­sume it. I should trem­ble at the thought.”

“I think, sir, that I shall be able to do my du­ty.” William Press­ley spoke stiffly, with a touch of con­de­scen­sion and a shade of re­sent­ment, such as he al­ways evinced at any sign that the censer might cease to swing.

“It isn't a sim­ple mat­ter of du­ty. It's a much more com­pli­cat­ed mat­ter of abil­ity,” the judge said stern­ly.

“Par­don me, sir, but it re­al­ly does not seem to me such a dif­fi­cult place to fill,” said William, lofti­ly. “In this, as in any oth­er po­si­tion of life, the man who is in­flu­enced sole­ly by the pro­found­est and most con­sci­en­tious con­vic­tion, and who is firm in fol­low­ing his con­vic­tions, can hard­ly go far astray.”

The judge looked at him over his big spec­ta­cles in per­plexed, trou­bled si­lence for a mo­ment. So gaz­ing, he gave the old im­pa­tient toss of his tou­sled head, and the old quizzi­cal look came un­der his sud­den­ly up­lift­ed eye­brow.

“All _right_, William!” he said at last, al­most im­me­di­ate­ly laps­ing in­to si­lence, and present­ly be­gin­ning to nod.

Philip Al­ston scarce­ly glanced at the judge and his nephew. He was look­ing at Ruth, and not­ing with ador­ing eyes that her beau­ty had blos­somed like some rare flow­er of late. It seemed to him that the ros­es on her fair cheeks were of a more exquisite, yet brighter tint, that her eyes were bluer and brighter and soft­er than ev­er. There al­so ap­peared to be a new ma­tu­ri­ty in the del­icate curves of her grace­ful fig­ure. But there was no change in the child­like af­fec­tion of her bear­ing to­ward him. She clung round him just as she had al­ways done, and when she turned to leave his side to take a chair, he called her back, un­con­scious­ly falling in­to the tone of fond play­ful­ness that he had used in her child­hood.

“If a lit­tle girl about your size were to come and look in her un­cle's pock­ets, she might find some­thing that she would like--”

Ruth did not wait for him to fin­ish what he was say­ing, but ran to him as if she had been the lit­tle tod­dler of oth­er days, need­ing on­ly the sight of his dear face, or the sound of his kind voice, to fly in­to his out­stretched arms. In a mo­ment more her ea­ger hands were swift­ly search­ing his pock­ets, and mak­ing be­lieve to have great dif­fi­cul­ty in find­ing the hid­den trea­sure. She knew all the while where it was, but she al­so knew that he liked her to be a long time in get­ting it out. His wor­ship­ping eyes looked down on her hands flut­ter­ing like white doves about his heart,--for it was hard to keep away from that in­ner breast pock­et--and at last, when she could not wait any longer, she went deep down in it, and drew out a flat pack­et. This looked as if it had trav­elled a long dis­tance. There were many wrap­pings around it, and many seals and for­eign marks were stamped up­on it. She laid it on his knee, and pre­tend­ed to shake him, when he made out that he meant to take time to un­tie the cords which bound the wrap­pings, in­stead of cut­ting them. And when he had cut the cords with his pen-​knife, the wrap­pings fell off, dis­clos­ing a jew­el case of white satin rich­ly wrought in gold. At the quick touch of her fin­gers the lid of the case flew up, re­veal­ing a long string of large pearls,--great frozen drops of the rain­bow, wrapped in sil­very white mist,--trea­sures that a queen might have cov­et­ed.

The girl did not know how won­der­ful the pearls were and had not the faintest con­cep­tion of their val­ue. But she saw their beau­ty and felt their charm, for a beau­ti­ful wom­an loves and longs for the jew­els that be­long to her beau­ty, as nat­ural­ly as the rose loves and longs to gath­er and keep the dew­drops in its heart.

“Oh! Oh!” was all that she could say, and she could think of noth­ing to do, ex­cept stand on tip­toe and touch Philip Al­ston's cheek with a but­ter­fly kiss. And then when he had put the string of pearls around her neck, so that it swung far down over her round­ed young bo­som, she danced across the room to the largest mir­ror. But the cor­ner in which it hung was al­ways full of shad­ows and so dark on this gloomy day that she could not see, and with pret­ty im­pe­ri­ous­ness she called for can­dles to be light­ed and brought to her. William Press­ley me­chan­ical­ly got up to obey, but Philip Al­ston moved more quick­ly. Go­ing to the hearth he took two can­dles from the man­tel­piece, lit them at the fire, and car­ried them to her. He ex­pect­ed to have the plea­sure of hold­ing them so that she might see the love­ly vi­sion, which he was al­ready look­ing up­on. But she took them from his hands and rais­ing them high above her head, danced back to the mir­ror, and stood gaz­ing at her own im­age, as art­less­ly as a lily bends over its shad­ow in a crys­tal pool. And as she thus gazed in the mir­ror, it sud­den­ly re­flect­ed some­thing which moved her more than her own like­ness. It showed her the open­ing of the front door, and gave her a glimpse of her lover stand­ing in the room. She whirled round, blush­ing, and with her eyes shin­ing like stars, and cried out:--“See, Paul! See--was there ev­er any­thing so love­ly?”

She went swift­ly to­ward him, hold­ing the can­dles still high­er, so that the pearls caught a rosy lus­tre from the light that fell on her ra­di­ant face. She was laugh­ing with pure de­light at the sight of him, for­get­ting the pearls. She did not know that she had called him by his Chris­tian name but she would have called him so, had she tak­en time to think. She had called him so ev­er since they had known that they loved each oth­er, and she did not stop to re­al­ize that this was the first time they had met in the pres­ence of oth­ers since be­com­ing plight­ed lovers. She re­al­ized noth­ing ex­cept his pres­ence--that alone filled her whole world with joy and con­tent. He came straight to meet her, hold­ing out his hands; but be­fore he could cross the great room, or even had time to speak, Philip Al­ston stepped for­ward and spoke sud­den­ly in clear tones:--

“Yes, see the wed­ding gift! The bridal pearls are here at last; all ready for Christ­mas Eve.”

Paul Col­bert paused. He was an ar­dent and bold lover, but the words were like a breath of frost on love's flow­er­ing. No ar­dor, no con­fi­dence, can keep a sen­si­tive man from feel­ing a chill when he sees the wom­an he loves decked in the beau­ti­ful things which are beau­ty's birthright, and re­al­izes for the first time that he can­not give them to her. With the painful shock which this feel­ing brought to the young doc­tor there was a greater shock in the sud­den thought of the pos­si­ble source of the rich­es which the pearls rep­re­sent­ed. A feel­ing of hor­ror rushed over him, as if he had seen that soft, white throat en­cir­cled by a ser­pent, and he sprang for­ward to tear it off.

Ruth had turned her head to look at Philip Al­ston, with a start of sur­prise and a lit­tle dis­qui­etude, but with­out fear or dis­trust. She could not be­lieve that he would wish her to mar­ry William af­ter he knew that she loved Paul; such a thought nev­er crossed her mind. Yet, as she looked, a strange feel­ing of alarm which she did not com­pre­hend swept over her, fill­ing her with form­less ter­ror. Some in­stinct made her shrink, as if this won­der­ful string of pearls, which she had thought so beau­ti­ful a mo­ment be­fore, had turned in­to a cru­el chain and was bind­ing her fast. She did not know that many a weak­er man has thus bound many a stronger wom­an with chains of gold and ropes of pearls. But she felt it, and her in­stinct was quick­er than her lover's thought. Had her hands been free she would have thrown the fet­ters from her, and find­ing her­self help­less, she turned to Paul Col­bert for help.

“Take them off! Quick--quick! They are too heavy,” she gasped.

It was Philip Al­ston who reached her first, and took the pearls from her neck and the can­dles from her hands; but she did not look at him, and went to her lover as if he had called her. Paul's arm go­ing out to meet her drew her to his side, and then, as the young cou­ple thus stood close to­geth­er, the truth was plain enough to ev­ery one whose eyes rest­ed up­on them. Philip Al­ston's face turned very white, and he made a move­ment as if he would spring be­tween them and part them by force. But he checked the im­pulse, af­ter that un­con­trol­lable start, and stood still, bear­ing in en­forced si­lence, and as best he could, as hard a tri­al as love ev­er put be­fore pride. William Press­ley al­so stood still and silent, suf­fer­ing bit­ter­er pangs through his wound­ed self-​love than love it­self ev­er could have in­flict­ed up­on him. Judge Knox straight­ened up from his doze in be­wil­dered as­ton­ish­ment, and made a dis­pleased ex­cla­ma­tion, but it passed un­heard. The old ladies by the hearth were dumb with amaze­ment. The boy stood un­no­ticed in his dark cor­ner un­der the stairs.

The young doc­tor now be­gan to speak de­lib­er­ate­ly, calm­ly, and clear­ly, be­ing ful­ly pre­pared with ev­ery word that he wished to ut­ter. He told the whole sto­ry with the sim­ple di­rect­ness that was nat­ural to him. He ex­plained why he had not spo­ken soon­er, and dwelt up­on Ruth's scru­ples be­cause he wished her po­si­tion to be ful­ly un­der­stood, not be­cause he felt it nec­es­sary to ex­cuse any­thing up­on his own ac­count. When he had said ev­ery­thing that he thought should be said, and when he had spo­ken mod­est­ly and proud­ly of their love for each oth­er, he went on to make frank men­tion of his af­fairs, his fam­ily, and his place in life. And then he turned to the judge:--

“There is, as you see, sir, no rea­son why I should not ask you to give her to me,” he said with a boy­ish blush dye­ing his hand­some young face, “since I have been so hon­ored, so hap­py, and so for­tu­nate as to win her con­sent. I am ready and ea­ger to tell you any­thing else that you may wish to know, sir.”

The judge lurched heav­ily out of his chair and rose un­steadi­ly to his feet in the sud­den, an­gry ex­cite­ment that flames out of drink.

“By--! 'Pon my soul, young sir, you are tak­ing a high hand in my house. Keep your place, sir, keep your place! Who are you that come here putting your hand on my niece, and or­der­ing the fam­ily about? Come to me, Ruth! Come to me in­stant­ly!”

Philip Al­ston laid a re­strain­ing hand on his arm, and even William Press­ley ut­tered a warn­ing word. In the pres­ence of the girl there must not be a vi­olent word, much less a vi­olent deed, no mat­ter what the feel­ings of the men might be, and no mat­ter what might come af­ter. That was the first ar­ti­cle in the code of chival­ry to­ward wom­en which ruled these first Ken­tuck­ians, as it rules most brave, strong men liv­ing sim­ple, stren­uous lives in the open. It ruled the judge al­so, as soon as he had time to think, and con­trolled him through all the fog that cloud­ed his fac­ul­ties.

“My dear,” he ap­pealed humbly, piteous­ly, bend­ing his rough gray head be­fore the girl, “I beg your par­don.”

She flew to him and ran her arm through his, thus rang­ing her­self on his side with a fiery air of loy­al­ty, and she turned on her lover with her soft eyes flash­ing:--

“How can you, Paul! I am sur­prised. I wouldn't have be­lieved it of you. What do you mean by speak­ing so to my un­cle Robert? Don't you see he isn't well? You must know that when he is well ev­ery­body re­spects and looks up to him--that the whole coun­ty de­pends on him,” she said.

The old judge and the young doc­tor looked at each oth­er over her head as men look at one an­oth­er when wom­en do things as true to their na­ture as this was to hers. And then, in spite of them­selves, the judge's left eye­brow went up very high, and a sun­ny smile bright­ened the doc­tor's grave face. Even Philip Al­ston smiled and felt a sud­den re­lief. With such a child as Ruth had just shown her­self to be, there must be some hope of lead­ing her by gen­tle­ness and per­sua­sion. There was, at least, a chance to gain time, and he moved ea­ger­ly to seize it. He looked at William Press­ley with an ex­pres­sion of undis­guised con­tempt, see­ing him stand ut­ter­ly un­moved. He could not help giv­ing a glance of scorn, which mea­sured him against Paul Col­bert. Who could blame the girl? Nev­er­the­less Philip Al­ston went to her and took her hand from the judge's arm, and placed it with­in his own. Hold­ing it fast against his side, he turned to the doc­tor.

“It might be best for all con­cerned if you would al­low us to talk this mat­ter over qui­et­ly among our­selves. We hard­ly know what to say, hav­ing it sprung in this to­tal­ly un­ex­pect­ed way. If you would be so kind as to leave us for the present--”

The doc­tor had drawn him­self up to his full height. He was about to say that he rec­og­nized no right on the part of Philip Al­ston to in­ter­fere, and to de­clare that he held him­self ac­count­able to no one but the judge. Yet as this pur­pose formed, his gaze in­stinc­tive­ly sought Ruth's, and he saw that she was look­ing up at Philip Al­ston with love--un­mis­tak­able love--in her face. The sight brought back all the help­less­ness that he al­ways felt when forced to re­al­ize her fond­ness for the man. He felt as he might have done had he seen some dead­ly thing coiled about her so close­ly that he could not strike it with­out wound­ing her ten­der breast. The trou­ble had been like that from the first and it was like that now--per­haps it al­ways would be. He did not know what to do or say, with her blue eyes ap­peal­ing from him to Philip Al­ston. He was glad when William Press­ley broke the si­lence. The young lawyer had been think­ing hard; he nev­er did any­thing on mere im­pulse. He al­ways stopped to con­sid­er how a thing would look, no mat­ter how an­gry he might be. His van­ity had been slow­ly swal­low­ing a bit­ter morsel, and it was now quite clear to him that he must act prompt­ly in or­der to es­cape a still bit­ter­er hu­mil­ia­tion. More­over, the chief con­sid­er­ation which had kept him from al­low­ing Ruth to break the en­gage­ment soon­er, was now re­moved. Philip Al­ston could hard­ly blame him in view of what had hap­pened; no one could think ill of him now.

“Just a mo­ment, if you please,” he said cold­ly and bit­ter­ly, ad­dress­ing all who were present. “There is no cause for de­lay or hes­ita­tion so far as I can see--cer­tain­ly there need be none on my ac­count. The en­gage­ment be­tween Ruth and my­self was tac­it­ly bro­ken some weeks ago. She has been over-​scrupu­lous in think­ing that any­thing was due me. She was quite free from any promise to me. You owe me noth­ing,” turn­ing to her with a bow. “You have my best wish­es.”

She went to him, hold­ing out her hand. “William, it hurts me to hear you speak like that. I did my best to tell you--alone--and ear­li­er. We were both mis­tak­en--nei­ther was to blame. There sure­ly is no rea­son for hard feel­ing. My af­fec­tion for you is just the same. William, dear--just for old time's sake.”

He took her hand, not be­cause her lov­ing gen­tle­ness won his for­give­ness, but be­cause he thought that no gen­tle­man could refuse a la­dy's hand. And when she turned away with a long sigh and quiv­er­ing lips, he stood firm and in­vin­ci­ble, sup­port­ed by the con­vic­tion that he alone of all those present had been right in ev­ery­thing. And such a con­vic­tion of one's own in­fal­li­bil­ity must be a very great sup­port un­der life's tri­als and dis­ap­point­ments. There can hard­ly be any oth­er ar­mor so near­ly im­pen­etra­ble to all those barbed doubts and fears which per­pet­ual­ly as­sail and wound the un­ar­mored. Think of what it must mean!--nev­er to feel that you might have been kinder or more just, or more gen­er­ous or more mer­ci­ful than you were; nev­er to have doubts and fears come knock­ing, knock­ing, knock­ing at your heart till you are com­pelled to see your mis­takes when it is too late to do what was left un­done, and--sad­dest and bit­ter­est of all--too late to un­do what was done.

But no one ex­cept Ruth looked at William Press­ley or thought of him. Philip Al­ston calm­ly and cour­te­ous­ly re­peat­ed his re­quest, and with Ruth's gaze urg­ing it, Paul Col­bert could not refuse to grant it. He took up his hat and went to­ward the door with Ruth walk­ing by his side. And then, with his hand on the latch, he paused and turned, and look­ing over her head, gazed steadi­ly and mean­ing­ly in­to the eyes of the three men. He looked first and longest at Philip Al­ston; then at William Press­ley, and fi­nal­ly at the judge, with a slight change of ex­pres­sion. To each one of the three men his look said as plain­ly as if it had been put in­to words, that he held him­self ready for any­thing and ev­ery­thing that any or all of them might have to say to him--out of her sight and hear­ing and knowl­edge. And they, in turn, un­der­stood, for that was the way of their coun­try, of their time, and their kind; and hav­ing done this he went qui­et­ly away.